reason.com Archives - 31 March 2015, Tuesday

Arising from the federal government's multi-pronged investigation into the operation of the darkwebsite Silk Road, used to buy and sell any item, legal or not, today the Justice Department released a criminal complaints against a Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a Secret Serv...

Are these Bitcoin ATMs really the future of money? Mike Piri of Bitcoin Agents and MyLocalBitcoinATM.com thinks so. "We put it in these places because [...] people pass by them every day, they see it, maybe they'll become curious, maybe they'll buy ten dollars," says Piri, who install...

Are these Bitcoin ATMs really the future of money? Mike Piri of Bitcoin Agents and MyLocalBitcoinATM.com thinks so. "We put it in these places because [...] people pass by them every day, they see it, maybe they'll become curious, maybe they'll buy ten dollars," says Piri, who install...

briannnnn why the Bitcoin hate? Bitcoin offers the ability to have secure, anonymous, auditable transactions easily and electronically without the potential for fiat manipulation. It can be divided infinitely and cannot be reproduced so it is naturally deflationary. Using triple ledge...

Dell just became the largest tech company in the world to embrace Bitcoin and start accepting it as payment. The multinational corporation is even proactively encouraging its customers to use the digital currency by offering a 10 percent discount on certain products if they're purchas...

On Thursday, New York State's top financial regulator, Benjamin Lawsky, hosted a two-hour "Ask Me Anything" chat on Reddit to provide "a window" into some of his thinking on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Last month, Lawsky hosted a two-day fact-finding hearing on the topic , and...

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A bill unanimously passed by the California State Assembly last week moves to end legal confusion and make Bitcoin “lawful money.” AB 129’s fate now rests with the State Senate. Uncertainty still plagues Bitcoin’s relationship with law enforcement. Individual Bitcoin users generally d...

But the idea that no one would want an additional layer privacy in their online purchases "except, perhaps, the criminals themselves," is odd. The idea is indeed odd; however, the fact that these journalists entertain such notion tells you that they pretty much agree with Cass "Goebbe...

Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners told the panel that these cases demonstrate that additional laws and regulations to protect against money laundering aren’t necessary. "Law enforcement did a fantastic job using existing regulations," said Liew. "It appears to have been contr...

Last semester, I took a health class that was about racial and gender based health disparities (I posted about it here, I took it because it was the only class that would satisfy a university diversity requirement and fit into my schedule). At one point, the professors had a professor...

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I've spent the last few days finally immersing myself in digital currencies and educating myself about what it takes to mine. I'm a little late in the game for mining Bitcoin, as it now takes a large up-front equipment investment to get real returns, but I'll try to do it on a small s...

On August 6, Judge Magistrate Amos Maazant of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas made many a headline when he became the first known United States government official to declare that Bitcoin-the non-government and non-bank currency, payments network, and anarchic di...

Laszlo At right, a verified snapshot of 10,000 bitcoins of tomato sauce, peppers, and onions circa mid-2010. These two pizzas are generally acknowledged to be the first tangible goods purchased with bitcoins, the online crypto-currency. Floridian Laszlo Hanyecz thought it would be "in...

Bitcoin, the cryptographic peer-to-peer digital currency, has reached a new price high since the market crash in April this year. Over the two weeks to 21 October, the value of one bitcoin rose by almost $60, and on Tuesday hit a high of $197.40 at the largest exchange , Mt Gox. An es...

Bitcoin’s censorship-resistance means that the government cannot engage in prior restraint when it comes to financial transactions. They may be able to identify and punish parties to a transaction after the fact, but with Bitcoin they can’t prevent that transaction from happening at a...

"The indictment charges Ulbricht as someone who aided and abetted this crime under Title 18, United States Code, section 2; under that theory, if another person commits a federal crime, the defendant is equally guilty if the defendant intentionally "aids, abets, counsels, commands, in...

"We're talking about reinventing the world's monetary system...from the ground up," says Jeffrey Tucker, executive editor of Laissez Faire Books, and an enthusiastic proponent of the open source peer-to-peer currency system Bitcoin . After participating in a panel discussion on Bitcoi...

"How Bitcoin is Reinventing The Monetary System: Q&A with Laissez Faire Books' Jeffrey Tucker" is the latest from Reason TV. Watch above or click the link below for full text, downloadable versions and more.

Forbes sums up some of the latest crummy news as government looks askance on ways people might be able to conduct economic transactions without them having an easy way to know all about it or get their cut: Things are getting serious for Bitcoin this month: a federal judge declared it...

Reason There's some uncertaintly about how official this new ban actually is, but the Bank of Thailand has reportedly outlawed any use of Bitcoin in the country. The "huh?" factor comes from the news being announced by a Bitcoin exchange, and not by the central bank itself. For now, T...

Regulations from which country? While I understand the legitimacy a certain level of regulation provides, opening your arms wide to the regulators seems a bit crazy. Once that box is open, it will never be closed again. Digital currency offer a way to break free from the chains of fia...

Credit: jmalievi/flickr Bitcoin's popularity in the U.S. is gradually rising as it branches out from tech-savvy and libertarian circles into the mainstream financial world. But who may benefit most from the technology are residents in countries like Argentina, where independent observ...

In a July 1 letter to the California Department of Financial Institutions, lawyers for the Bitcoin Foundation also clarified that the nonprofit does not itself sell bitcoins to consumers or run an exchange. But even if it did , such activity would not be regulated in California, the f...

Credit: CASASCIUS/wikimedia California's message to Bitcoin supporters: if you "may be" doing the crime, we'll tell you what you'll do in hard time. The California Department of Financial Institutions' cease and desist order dated May 30 wasn't as explicit in implicating the Bitcoin F...

Jeff Berwick is the founder of BitcoinATM, a company that aims to make real-world transactions with the stateless online currency much easier, faster, and more convenient. In the wake of the banking crisis in Cyprus—which at one point prompted the government to shut down all the count...

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Life on Bitcoin A soon-to-be-married couple in Utah launched a Kickstarter to fund a documentary about spending the first ninety days of their marriage on Bitcoin. An update on the Kickstarter page explains “This is NOT some stunt to provide for our living. All of the Kickstarter fund...

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The attraction of the Bitcoin is not just the anonymity it provides to users (an anonymity that the U.S. government has alleged some users have employed for money laundering). Bitcoin is also secure against traditional forms of counterfeiting. More important, the Bitcoin is designed t...

The decentralized private digital currency Bitcoin has had a busy few months, writes Brian Doherty. It has grown from an obsession of tech-geek libertarians to a staple of financial news and a subject of great interest to government officials. Last week, an account associated with the...

Jeff Tucker, the executive editor of Laissez Faire Books and an enthusiastic Bitcoin advocate, wrote yesterday that while he understands why the big players in Bitcoin might think that “every regulation confers a welcome legitimacy on the currency/payment system, and grants it greater...